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HISTORIC
OCONTO COUNTY SCHOOLS
Oak Orchard SchoolWas on Windross Lane
in Oak Orchard2890
County Road S
Town of PensaukeOconto
County, Wisconsin

Photo
contributed
by:Jill
GondekResearched and written by Gloria Olson for
Oconto County WIGenWeb
(Honor your sources)

"Oak
Orchard: Located on the bay between Little Suamico and
Pensaukee on county highway S, three miles south of community of
Pensaukee
and sometimes referred to as Southern Pensaukee in early
history.
The first settlers were John Windross and his wife Jemina Skelton who
arrived
in circa 1847.

The
trail through Oak Orchard was known as the Green Bay Trail
and later Green Bay Road and now County S.

Oak
Orchard grew to have a school and the Oak Orchard Presbyterian Church,
as referred to in newspaper articles, both located on the intersection
County S and Oak Orchard Road. The school was located on the east side
of S and the church on the west side, both on the south side of Oak
Orchard Road. The school burned down in the mid 1960’s. When
the school was destroyed the children from the area were bussed to
Brookside, as the unification of schools was already in
progress. The church burned down in the
1940’s and the school in the
mid 1960’s. When the school was destroyed the
children from the area
were bussed to Brookside, as the unification of schools was already in
progress.

The
1880 census shows:
Emaline Windross age 24, resident of Oak Orchard, teaching
school and her three younger sibling, George, age 16; William age 14; and
Mary
C., age 7 attending school in Oak Orchard."

Oak
Orchard was settled along a natural bay harbor in Lake Michigan
starting almost immediately after the Windross family came in 1847. This were 4
years before Oconto County was formed from Brown County, Wisconsin, in
1851. On the 1850 census there were only two children among the 14
residents of Oak Orchard.

In the following 10 years, families settled the land around the
Windross homestead and stopping off place. Each family had a number of
young children brought with them from
mostly New York, Vermont and Maine. Local Oak Orchard oral
history has the first school classes taking
place in the Windross homestead and the first school building already
established well before 1860.

Both
men and women were often
literate and valued education. The occupations listed for the men
included ship's carpenters, fishermen/farmers, coopers, and stone
cutter. Women of different ages listed "Teacher" as almost
the
only occupation, other than servant" outside the home. By
1860 Mahala Sutton, age 49 and wife of farmer C.H. Sutton, was listed
on the town of Pensaukee census, in the Oak Orchard area near the
Windross
family, as "Teaching Dist School." On the same census page, only 6
residents away was 19 year old Susan M. Knowles, also "Teaching
Dist School." Susan was the daughter, and living with her farming
parents William and Hannah Knowles. In this ealry time, teachers lived
near their school houses, either in their own family home or with a
nearby family as part of their contract.

In 1870 Julia Galt, age 22 was living in Oak Orchard with the E.R. Sivermore family,
3 residences from the Wiindross family. She was listed with the
occupation of "Teaching School." Two more houses away Amanda Herkimer,
age 36 and living with the Taylor family was also "Teaching School."
The Oak Orchard area had a very high number of children listed as
having the occupation "at school."

Oconto County
ReporterAugust 30, 1895

We learn that Miss
Ida Lince has her contract for teaching
the Oak Orchard school for the coming year.

Following graduation from
high schoolHelen
Laduron Janssen Jelinske attended Oshkosh Normal
where
she received her degree in elementary teaching in 1928. She
started
her teaching career at the Oak Orchard School. by niece Gloria Olson

In
1947 the school at Oak Orchard District 3 in the Town of
Pensaukee burned. The children were transported to the grade school in
Little Suamico for the remainder of the school term. The next summer
District 3 and District 2 were consolidated and is known as Joint
District Number 3 of Pensaukee. The children are transported by bus.
Clair Matravers being the bus driver. This is the 23rd in a
series of articles sponsored by the Oconto County Teacher's Association
to promote better public relations in the schools of our county.Brookside and Pensaukee Schools
Article